Thursday, April 8, 2010

creepin' again

Every once in a while I con some of the guys from my place of employment to get out and ride a bike through the woods rather than a 4-wheeler with gun racks attached. While I haven't pushed them to hit singletrack yet I have noticed a few actually take an interest in cycling. The few rides we have done has actually sparked some interest in learning the difference between a dept. store bike and one obtained from a bike shop. I'm still working on trying to get them to understand the biggest fattest cushiest seat is not always the best choice but hey at least it's a start.Yesterday I joined them for another adventure on the VA. Creeper trail. This is not our first trip and they actually made one without me 2 weeks ago. Surprisingly we were able to cover 38 miles on the mostly flat double track rail trail that follows along side a river and weaves through VA. Christmas Tree farms.Although the VA Creeper is not a true mountain bikers dream it's a nice change of pace every once in a while to get out and enjoy nature and the feel of two wheels underneath you. It's great to see guys who haven't ridden a bike in years awaken that youthful spirit and experience the thrill of flying downhill under they're own power and a little help from gravity. The only time I really pushed them was to break 20 mph at least once with a threat of whoever didn't had to buy the first round of beers @ lunch.I did take the Karate Monkey as my choice of wheels since it was a singlespeed. I thought the lack of gears going up would give the other guys a bit of an advantage. In all reality it was the downhill that proved to be tougher. I had to draft and spin as hard as possible in order to stay mid pack going down. I should have picked a bigger gear as it was a bit dusty and I ate alot of it trying to stay on they're rear wheel.A great time was had by all including myself and I think I actually planted a seed. A couple of them are starting to realize that comfort bikes are really meant for jumping and are considering a switch to something more aggressive.

I did receive on of these in the mail the other day courtesy of Melinda as a Birthday present.

It was actually supposed to arrive in time for last weekends race but I made the mistake of not pointing Melinda to the correct website for purchase. The folks she thought she was supposed to order it from took a ridiculously long time to ship it out. It was my fault but since my performance last weekend was less than stellar it was not a big loss. Now I just need to find some new trails to shoot.